Exhibition Chronicles 100 Years Of Medical Caring

May 24, 2009|Submitted by Mattatuck Museum Arts & History Center

Saint Mary's Hospital: One Hundred Years of Caring, a new exhibition at the Mattatuck Museum Arts & History Center, on display through September 20, chronicles and celebrates a century of medical care to the residents of the Greater Waterbury area, and includes a section on the hospital's School of Nursing.

Marvel at the successes physicians of the period were able to achieve while viewing historic photographs, archives, and old medical equipment, including a mid-century X-ray machine and X-ray image taken on glass. Be amazed by nursing protocols in manuals dating from the early 1900s, and see old nursing uniforms.

On March 2, 1909 Saint Mary's Hospital admitted its first 4 patients by horse-drawn ambulance, fulfilling the vision of establishing a hospital within the industrial core of Waterbury. Since that time the hospital has played a vital role in providing medical care to residents. The influenza outbreak of 1918, the Depression of the 1930s, the first polio patients in 1931, an industrial plant explosion, a hotel fire, a strike riot in 1920, a bus wreck in 1940, and the flood of 1955 were all events in which the hospital provided care to those injured or ill. Admission to the reception is free. For more information about Saint Mary's Hospital: One Hundred Years of Caring, the museum's collections, and other programs, please call 203-753-0381 ext. 10 or visit the website at www.MattatuckMuseum.org.